


Vigil

by consortwithstars (amydieg)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Campaign 2 Episode 26, Episode 26 (Critical Role), Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 22:32:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15277587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amydieg/pseuds/consortwithstars
Summary: It's been five days.They knew she was too stubborn to be talked out of it. She hoped she was right about how stubborn someone else was too.





	Vigil

It’s been five days.

Five days and she is running out of rations and patience and hope. Five days, and she’s feebly trying to write a note that says enough but not too much and also doesn’t sound like a total asshole wrote it.

The first day they wrapped him in a silvered tapestry and weighed their options. Their new companion assured them no one in shady creek would revive a corpse for less than its weight in gold. She stayed out of it after a goblin nearly scratched her eyes out for calling their friend a ‘corpse.’ 

The first night they pretended like they might actually sleep until a voice drifted into the darkness from one bedroll. “Uh, I have a …  _ Schnapsidee _ . Uh, what you call a, uh  _ crazy idea _ .” A few minutes later they were all saying, ‘It worked once, it could work again, right?’ It even almost sounded like they believed it.

At sunrise on the second day they buried him with his swords and a page from a missing cleric’s sketchbook. A drawing of a joyful purple tiefling and his name beneath it, carefully pinned to the outside of his colorful coat. They left the tapestry loosely wrapped around him to keep the dirt out of his mouth and eyes. That second night silent, awkward prayers floated up to only slightly familiar deities. A goblin girl thought about a barbarian who loved flowers and her best friend and cried quietly in her blankets. A cat slept atop a shallow grave guarded by a silver thread.

Day three they had to start planning. A dwarven voice of reason pointed out that they couldn’t wait here forever. They knew she was right even though they had stalled out in a nightmare and it was hard to think about tomorrow when today didn’t seem real. First the kidnapping and then this and no time to think or rest between. What they had done so far was not so much a plan as a desperate, blind wish. 

The only logical thing to do was keep going. Three more friends in trouble, one of them the best hope for solving this new disaster. They packed and prepared and tried not to think about what they were leaving behind or the things they’d have to explain.

_ “We don’t leave people behind.” _

The voice popped obnoxiously into her head as they began to walk away and her pack hit the ground with a thud. She sat down again and pretended it was no big deal. Like she just had a passing fancy to sit alone under some trees. 

“I’ll wait a little longer. Weather’s nice, ya know.”

The dwarven woman opened her mouth to protest but the scruffy man beside her was already digging out some rations. “Don’t linger too long, ja?” His tone was as casual as he could make it and she was glad he chose to let her pretend. “We’ll need you.” 

She caught the rations and nodded once. They knew she was too stubborn to be talked out of it. She hoped she was right about how stubborn someone else was too.

The fourth day was maybe the worst day of her life and only the trees will ever know how she survived it. 

Now it’s day five and there’s an ache in her neck from falling asleep against a rock and an ache in her chest from waking up to a mound of undisturbed dirt. For a moment she is gripped by the urge to dig him up scream until her voice gives out. Her final act of desperation is to ask the Traveler to do whatever it is gods are supposed to do. Not because she thinks the god likes her but because she thinks he probably liked him. She shuffles the deck of fortune telling cards she hates but took anyway and pretends she isn’t crying. 

She leaves the note and the moon card under a rock next to the grave. 

 

_ Your name is Mollymauk and you’re a member of the Mighty Nein. Your friends are waiting in Shady Creek Run.  _

 

She stands there for a few more minutes and finally chokes out, “Fuck you, Molly.”

She turns her back to the grave for the first time in days and knows that, even without Caleb’s memory, she’ll never forget what it looks like. She tries to imagine the dirt shifting and can almost hear it.  _ Can _ hear it. 

She freezes and wonders how far a mind can go when it wants something more than it ever has. She isn't used to wanting so much. The sound shifts into gasps for air and she stays perfectly still, holding desperately to this in between place where anything could be true. She just wants to stay here and believe for a few heartbeats.

There’s a rough cough and she whips around.

“Fuck you too, Beau. Now dig me out of this bloody hole.”

**Author's Note:**

> *Schnapsidee (n, German) - literally means a "booze idea" and is a term commonly used to indicate that an idea sounds crazy, useless, or completely foolish


End file.
